Dirty Tackle

Future News: Andre Villas-Boas given 37 seconds to save his job

Andre Villas-Boas' job as manager at Tottenham Hotspur is in serious doubt following the club's embarrassing 6-0 loss to Manchester City at the weekend. Growing disillusioned with Villas-Boas' handling of the team, Spurs executives have given him exactly 37 seconds to turn their fortunes around.

"Andre has had three months to take a club that sold off its best player and brought in seven new boys from all over the world who had never played together before and turn it into the best team in the history of Earth," said a high-ranking source within the club whose name rhymes with Maniel Nevy. "And yet he has us playing like a team that's been slapped together all at once and needs time to develop a chemistry. How can that be? It's like when my wife told me a baby has to grow inside the mother for nine months before it can be born. Who can wait that long? If a fully educated adult doesn't come out of the womb immediately after it's conceived, then there's definitely something wrong and the mother should be sacked. Villas-Boas has 37 seconds to fix this or there will be consequences."

In his first year in charge, Villas-Boas led Spurs to a club record 72 points in the Premier League last season. Though that was only good enough for fifth place. Over the summer Spurs sold PFA Player of the Year Gareth Bale to Real Madrid and spent a club record £110.5 million on seven new players. Through 12 league matches this season, they sit ninth in the table — one point behind Manchester United — with losses to Man City, Newcastle, West Ham and Arsenal.

"Chelsea sacked Villas-Boas after eight months of disappointment," said the source of the Portuguese's troubled spell at Stamford Bridge. "We've dealt with him for double that. And looking at my watch, it's actually been well over a minute and a half since I made my threat and what has he done in that span? Nothing. Nevermind that it isn't even a matchday and that it takes 90 minutes to play a game of football and nine months to play a season that will inevitably be filled with highs and lows — I expected immediate results despite everything that's happened and that unrealistic belief hasn't come true. Obviously my impatience is entirely his fault."